Summer Fruit Sponge Pudding Recipes

Steps:

• Grease a 600 ml (1 pint) pudding basin.
• Mix together the dry ingredients.
• Add the egg and sufficient milk to produce a smooth dropping consistency.
• Place the mixture into prepared pudding basin.
• Cover with pleated greaseproof paper and foil and steam for about 1½ hours.
• Turn out and serve hot with custard or syrup.

Steps:

• Bring out the juices: Wash fruit and gently dry on kitchen paper - keep strawberries separate. Put sugar and 3 tbsp water into a large pan. Gently heat until sugar dissolves - stir a few times. Bring to a boil for 1 min, then tip in the fruit (not strawberries). Cook for 3 mins over a low heat, stirring 2-3 times. The fruit will be softened, mostly intact and surrounded by dark red juice. Put a sieve over a bowl and tip in the fruit and juice.
• Line the bowl with cling film and prepare the bread: Line the 1.25-litre basin with cling film as this will help you to turn out the pudding. Overlap two pieces of cling film in the middle of the bowl as it's easier than trying to get one sheet to stick to all of the curves. Let the edges overhang by about 15cm. Cut the crusts off the bread. Cut 4 pieces of bread in half, a little on an angle, to give 2 lopsided rectangles per piece. Cut 2 slices into 4 triangles each and leave the final piece whole.
• Build the pud: Dip the whole piece of bread into the juice for a few secs just to coat. Push this into the bottom of the basin. Now dip the wonky rectangular pieces one at a time and press around the basin's sides so that they fit together neatly, alternately placing wide and narrow ends up. If you can't quite fit the last piece of bread in it doesn't matter, just trim into a triangle, dip in juice and slot in. Now spoon in the softened fruit, adding the strawberries here and there as you go.
• Let flavours mingle then serve: Dip the bread triangles in juice and place on top - trim off overhang with scissors. Keep leftover juice for later. Bring cling film up and loosely seal. Put a side plate on top and weight down with cans. Chill for 6 hrs or overnight. To serve, open out cling film then put a serving plate upside-down on top and flip over. serve with leftover juice, any extra berries and cream.

Steps:

• Heat oven Gas 4/355F degrees.
• Well butter 2 1/2 to 3 inch deep pie dish.
• Cream together the butter or margarine and sugar.
• Add eggs one at a time with a little flour until smooth.
• Add remaining flour, baking powder (if used) and salt, beating well.
• Add the milk, and beat again.
• Pour mixture into dish and smooth the top.
• Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until well risen and brown.
• Variations to the Basic Sponge: Sultana Sponge; Put 2 oz sultanas in the bottom and around the sides of a well buttered dish, pour on the mixture.
• Apricot Sponge: Add 3 soaked apricots chopped small, to the mixture, put 3 or 4 apricot halves in the bottom of the dish, pour on the sponge mixture.
• Jam Sponge: Put 3 or 4 tblsp of any kind of jam in the bottom of the dish, pout on the sponge mixture.
• Syrup Sponge: Put 1 tblsp of golden syrup in the bottom of the dish, pour on mixture.
• Chocolate Sponge; Substitute 1 tblsp cocoa for 1 oz.
• flour, sieving it with the flour.
• Ginger Sponge; Add 1 tspn ground ginger to the flour and use 4 oz golden syrup instead of sugar, melted in warmed milk.
• Black Cap Pudding:Put a tblspn cleaned currants in the bottom of the dish, pour on the mixture.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350, and while it preheats, place 1 stick of butter or margerine in a 9 X 13 or smaller deeper baking dish, in the oven until butter melts.(9x13 makes a nice size, but it comes out kind of thin.).
• Mix sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk together, by hand until smooth.
• In pan with melted butter, add batter, making sure it covers most of the bottom of the pan.
• Drain fruit, and spoon on top of batter evenly, so batter is evenly covered with fruit.
• Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Steps:

• Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add eggs and then flour and baking powder which have been sifted together.
• Lastly mix in the milk to get a spreadable batter.
• Spread over hot fruit in an oven proof dish.
• Bake at 400'F/200'C for 30 minutes approximately or until risen and golden brown.
• Serve warm.

Steps:

• Very lightly butter a 1-litre pudding basin. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Coarsely grate one of the apple quarters and thinly slice the rest. Combine the sliced apple and blackberries, toss with the 2 tbsp caster sugar and spoon half into the bottom of the basin.
• Mix together the flour and baking powder. Beat both the sugars and butter together in a large bowl with an electric hand beater until light and creamy. Break in 1 egg and beat well, then beat in the second egg (the mix will look curdled). Sift half the flour mixture over the sponge mixture and fold in gently. Carefully stir in half the milk, then repeat with the rest of the flour and milk, followed by the orange zest and reserved grated apple.
• Spoon two-thirds of the sponge mixture over the fruit mix in the basin and level off. Spread the rest of the fruit on top, followed by the remaining sponge mix. Place the basin in a small roasting tin half filled with hot water. Bake for 1¼ hrs (lay foil over the top for the last 15 mins if it is browning too quickly) until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
• While the pudding is baking, make the custard. Mix the sugar, custard powder and cornflour with 1 tbsp of the milk to make a paste. Beat in the egg yolk. Pour the remaining milk into a pan, slit the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape in the vanilla seeds. Add the pod to the milk and bring just to the boil. Pour this over the cornflour mix, stir, then pour into a clean pan. Cook over a medium heat, stirring all the time, until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and stir in the crème fraîche.
• Loosen pudding from the sides of the basin with a round-bladed knife and carefully invert it onto a serving plate. Serve with the custard.